ABSTRACT
Dasein is one of the most basic concepts of Martin Heidegger’s philosophy, beginning with the phenomenology that he develops in his major work, Being and Time, as the method necessary for fundamental ontology. Dasein enters into German philosophical terminology by the early eighteenth century as the equivalent for the Latin derivative, Existenz. In Being and Time, analysis of being-here dominates, as Heidegger attempts to demonstrate that time, suitably interpreted, underlies and ultimately gives meaning to its being. Heidegger’s attempt to think being historically in the late 1930s allegedly breaks with traditional forms of metaphysics that, he submits, mistakenly think of being in terms of some particular being as the ultimate, sufficient ground of other beings. Being-here participates in appropriation’s refusal by insisting on it and renouncing any attempts to ignore it. In Being and Time Heidegger takes pains to differentiate his existential analysis, centered on being-here, from studies of human nature, whether in the form of psychology, anthropology, or biology.
